Hello to Fool’s Mountain:Blogging for China. I have been watching the furor over the global economy for the past 8 months as a past time, being unemployed union carpenter since thanksgiving of ’08. Much has been made of the “cause of this global crisis’ mostly revolving around mindspeak from the economic community on Wallstreet. Television reports assure us daily that everything will soon be corrected and America will continue to lead the world down the primrose lane towards happy ever after, or something akin to this.

Few threads ago, I brought to FM readers attention that WSJ had held a “debate” between two Indian nationals (college-age students in fact) on whether economic sanctions can drive democratic change in China. The “debate” turned out to be pretty ignorant – so WSJ essentially pushed it aside (I think that was their reason) – WSJ readers bashed the debators – and – handful of FM readers (those commented anyways) agreed that the debate was indeed ignorant. Continue reading »

There were more comments on my comment than the original article. Most are Tibetan exiles I guess. So, their POVs are completely different from my Han’s POV. I understand and accept their disapproval.

We hope we’re all be able to understand each other’s POV even if it completely different from yours. We do not want to limit our point of view like the frog under a well but a fool that can move mountain.

Reading the recent posts inspire me to write the above. Hope it will not offend any one.

This week, several Chinese directors, including world-renowed independent film director Jia Zhangke, abruptly withdrew their works from screening at the upcoming Melbourne International Film Festival, which starts today and runs through Aug. 9. Organizers of the Melbourne International Film Festival touts the festaival as “a feast of cinematic delicacies from over 50 countries,” making this result that much more tragic. Continue reading »

The ethnic protests and clashes in China’s westernmost region of Xinjiang on 5-6 July 2009 and the following days have caused around 200 deaths. The deadly violence, mainly between the Uyghur (and Muslim) population and the Han Chinese – but also involving the security forces killing some protesting Uyghurs, in circumstances that are not yet clear – has shocked and polarised public opinion across China. They have also focused renewed attention on the sensitive and complex theme of the relationship between different ethnic groups in the People’s Republic of China.Continue reading »

News of the suicide of Chinese worker Sun Danyong last Thursday after his employer accused him of stealing an Apple iPhone prototype has caused quite a stir in Chinese media and online community. Continue reading »

Given all the rhetoric about ‘not playing politics’ that was seen last year, and the fact that the Taiwanese team will be competing as Chinese Taipei, I was quite surprised to hear that the PRC team was boycotting today’s opening ceremony. Here’s how Richard Hazeldine of the Taipei Times saw it: Continue reading »

China is finally coming after Detroit from this WJS article
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124761586630042303.html

Random thoughts.

* With the recent bad quality problems of Chinese products, China really cannot establish a name brand outside China – at least for a while. It is a good way to buy a brand name.

* Cost too much to build dealerships in foreign countries and learning international marketing and laws. It is a good and cost effective way. They are many former US dealers begging for dealership with ample of cheap retail space.

* China still lacks a lot of expertise in top auto technologies such as engine, transmission and environmental control devices. All these can be transferred from Volvo. A win-win situation.

* With China’s (or the company’s) reserve, it is a timely bargain that will return better than most of the past foreign investments, let alone the US treasuries.

– The Chinese engineering graduates are no dummies. They’re so dedicated and they work longer hours than most in the west. 12 hour work for one engineer actually equates to 16 hour work of the counterpart in the west working 8 hours when you consider coffee breaks, socializing in the office, holidays, vacations…

* It is the major part of the auto market. Electric cars from another Chinese company is a very small part of today’s auto market. I was a little surprised they did not bid on some division of GM like Pontiac.

* Volvo is a good and reliable car, but on the more expensive side. My friend after surviving from a could be fatal accident with a Volvo is buying Volvo cars for life.

Hope it will not go to Germany way to build cars so sophisticated that it is a big problem to own one in US with expensive parts and unqualified technicians.

This is the full session between Niall Ferguson and James Fallows at the recently held Aspen Ideas Festival. Allen had posted excepts and we promised you the complete discussion as soon as it became available. Niall Ferguson had coined the term “Chimerica” to describe the symbiotic relationship between the economies of China and the United States. He currently sees this relationship as being in jeopardy, while James Fallows feels the relationship is far stronger the most realize. This video is slightly over 75 minutes.

After the tragic events of July 5 in Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in China, it would be useful to look more closely into the actual role of the US Government’s ”independent“ NGO, the National Endowment for Democracy (NED). All indications are that the US Government, once more acting through its “private” Non-Governmental Organization, the NED, is massively intervening into the internal politics of China.

The reasons for Washington’s intervention into Xinjiang affairs seems to have little to do with concerns over alleged human rights abuses by Beijing authorities against Uyghur people. It seems rather to have very much to do with the strategic geopolitical location of Xinjiang on the Eurasian landmass and its strategic importance for China’s future economic and energy cooperation with Russia, Kazakhastan and other Central Asia states of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization.

The major organization internationally calling for protests in front of Chinese embassies around the world is the Washington, D.C.-based World Uyghur Congress (WUC).

The WUC manages to finance a staff, a very fancy website in English, and has a very close relation to the US Congress-funded NED. According to published reports by the NED itself, the World Uyghur Congress receives $215,000.00 annually from the National Endowment for Democracy for “human rights research and advocacy projects.” The president of the WUC is an exile Uyghur who describes herself as a “laundress turned millionaire,” Rebiya Kadeer, who also serves as president of the Washington D.C.-based Uyghur American Association, another Uyghur human rights organization which receives significant funding from the US Government via the National Endowment for Democracy.

The NED was intimately involved in financial support to various organizations behind the Lhasa ”Crimson Revolution“ in March 2008, as well as the Saffron Revolution in Burma/Myanmar and virtually every regime change destabilization in eastern Europe over the past years from Serbia to Georgia to Ukraine to Kyrgystan to Teheran in the aftermath of the recent elections.

Allen Weinstein, who helped draft the legislation establishing NED, was quite candid when he said in a published interview in 1991: “A lot of what we do today was done covertly 25 years ago by the CIA.”

The NED is supposedly a private, non-government, non-profit foundation, but it receives a yearly appropriation for its international work from the US Congress. The NED money is channelled through four “core foundations”. These are the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs, linked to Obama’s Democratic Party; the International Republican Institute tied to the Republican Party; the American Center for International Labor Solidarity linked to the AFL-CIO US labor federation as well as the US State Department; and the Center for International Private Enterprise linked to the US Chamber of Commerce.

The salient question is what has the NED been actively doing that might have encouraged the unrest in Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, and what is the Obama Administration policy in terms of supporting or denouncing such NED-financed intervention into sovereign politics of states which Washington deems a target for pressure? The answers must be found soon, but one major step to help clarify Washington policy under the new Obama Administration would be for a full disclosure by the NED, the US State Department and NGO’s linked to the US Government, of their involvement, if at all, in encouraging Uyghur separatism or unrest. Is it mere coincidence that the Uyghur riots take place only days following the historic meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization?

Uyghur exile organizations, China and Geopolitics

On May 18 this year, the US-government’s in-house “private” NGO, the NED, according to the official WUC website, hosted a seminal human rights conference entitled East Turkestan: 60 Years under Communist Chinese Rule, along with a curious NGO with the name, the Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organisation (UNPO).

The Honorary President and founder of the UNPO is one Erkin Alptekin, an exile Uyghur who founded UNPO while working for the US Information Agency’s official propaganda organization, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty as Director of their Uygur Division and Assistant Director of the Nationalities Services.

Alptekin also founded the World Uyghur Congress at the same time, in 1991, while he was with the US Information Agency. The official mission of the USIA when Alptekin founded the World Uyghur Congress in 1991 was “to understand, inform, and influence foreign publics in promotion of the [USA] national interest…” Alptekin was the first president of WUC, and, according to the official WUC website, is a “close friend of the Dalai Lama.”

Closer examination reveals that UNPO in turn to be an American geopolitical strategist’s dream organization. It was formed, as noted, in 1991 as the Soviet Union was collapsing and most of the land area of Eurasia was in political and economic chaos. Since 2002 its Director General has been Archduke Karl von Habsburg of Austria who lists his (unrecognized by Austria or Hungary) title as “Prince Imperial of Austria and Royal Prince of Hungary.”

Among the UNPO principles is the right to ‘self-determination’ for the 57 diverse population groups who, by some opaque process not made public, have been admitted as official UNPO members with their own distinct flags, with a total population of some 150 million peoples and headquarters in the Hague, Netherlands.

UNPO members range from Kosovo which “joined” when it was fully part of then Yugoslavia in 1991. It includes the “Aboriginals of Australia” who were listed as founding members along with Kosovo. It includes the Buffalo River Dene Nation indians of northern Canada.

The select UNPO members also include Tibet which is listed as a founding member. It also includes other explosive geopolitical areas as the Crimean Tartars, the Greek Minority in Romania, the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria (in Russia), the Democratic Movement of Burma, and the gulf enclave adjacent to Angola and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and which just happens to hold rights to some of the world’s largest offshore oil fields leased to Condi Rice’s old firm, Chevron Oil. Further geopolitical hotspots which have been granted elite recognition by the UNPO membership include the large section of northern Iran which designates itself as Southern Azerbaijan, as well as something that calls itself Iranian Kurdistan.

In April 2008 according to the website of the UNPO, the US Congress’ NED sponsored a “leadership training” seminar for the World Uyghur Congress (WUC) together with the Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization. Over 50 Uyghurs from around the world together with prominent academics, government representatives and members of the civil society gathered in Berlin Germany to discuss “Self-Determination under International Law.” What they discussed privately is not known. Rebiya Kadeer gave the keynote address.

The suspicious timing of the Xinjiang riots

The current outbreak of riots and unrest in Urumqi, the capital of Xinjiang in the northwest part of China, exploded on July 5 local time.

According to the website of the World Uyghur Congress, the “trigger” for the riots was an alleged violent attack on June 26 in China’s southern Guangdong Province at a toy factory where the WUC alleges that Han Chinese workers attacked and beat to death two Uyghur workers for allegedly raping or sexually molesting two Han Chinese women workers in the factory. On July 1, the Munich arm of the WUC issued a worldwide call for protest demonstrations against Chinese embassies and consulates for the alleged Guangdong attack, despite the fact they admitted the details of the incident were unsubstantiated and filled with allegations and dubious reports.

According to a press release they issued, it was that June 26 alleged attack that gave the WUC the grounds to issue their worldwide call to action.

On July 5, a Sunday in Xinjiang but still the USA Independence Day, July 4, in Washington, the WUC in Washington claimed that Han Chinese armed soldiers seized any Uyghur they found on the streets and according to official Chinese news reports, widespread riots and burning of cars along the streets of Urumqi broke out resulting over the following three days in over 140 deaths.

China’s official Xinhua News Agency said that protesters from the Uighur Muslim ethnic minority group began attacking ethnic Han pedestrians, burning vehicles and attacking buses with batons and rocks. “They took to the street…carrying knives, wooden batons, bricks and stones,” they cited an eyewitness as saying. The French AFP news agency quoted Alim Seytoff, general secretary of the Uighur American Association in Washington, that according to his information, police had begun shooting “indiscriminately” at protesting crowds.

Two different versions of the same events: The Chinese government and pictures of the riots indicate it was Uyghur riot and attacks on Han Chinese residents that resulted in deaths and destruction. French official reports put the blame on Chinese police “shooting indiscriminately.” Significantly, the French AFP report relies on the NED-funded Uyghur American Association of Rebiya Kadeer for its information. The reader should judge if the AFP account might be motivated by a US geopolitical agenda, a deeper game from the Obama Administration towards China’s economic future.

Is it merely coincidence that the riots in Xinjiang by Uyghur organizations broke out only days after the meeting took place in Yakaterinburg, Russia of the member nations of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, as well as Iran as official observer guest, represented by President Ahmadinejad?

Over the past few years, in the face of what is seen as an increasingly hostile and incalculable United States foreign policy, the major nations of Eurasia—China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan have increasingly sought ways of direct and more effective cooperation in economic as well as security areas. In addition, formal Observer status within SCO has been given to Iran, Pakistan, India and Mongolia. The SCO defense ministers are in regular and growing consultation on mutual defense needs, as NATO and the US military command continue provocatively to expand across the region wherever it can.

The Strategic Importance of Xinjiang for Eurasian Energy Infrastructure

There is another reason for the nations of the SCO, a vital national security element, to having peace and stability in China’s Xinjiang region. Some of China’s most important oil and gas pipeline routes pass directly through Xinjiang province. Energy relations between Kazkhstan and China are of enormous strategic importance for both countries, and allow China to become less dependent on oil supply sources that can be cut off by possible US interdiction should relations deteriorate to such a point.

Kazak President Nursultan Nazarbayev paid a State visit in April 2009 to Beijing. The talks concerned deepening economic cooperation, above all in the energy area, where Kazkhastan holds huge reserves of oil and likely as well of natural gas. After the talks in Beijing, Chinese media carried articles with such titles as “”Kazakhstani oil to fill in the Great Chinese pipe.”

The Atasu-Alashankou pipeline to be completed in 2009 will provide transportation of transit gas to China via Xinjiang. As well Chinese energy companies are involved in construction of a Zhanazholskiy gas processing plant, Pavlodar electrolyze plant and Moynakskaya hydro electric station in Kazakhstan.

According to the US Government’s Energy Information Administration, Kazakhstan’s Kashagan field is the largest oil field outside the Middle East and the fifth largest in the world in terms of reserves, located off the northern shore of the Caspian Sea, near the city of Atyrau. China has built a 613-mile-long pipeline from Atasu, in northwestern Kazakhstan, to Alashankou at the border of China’s Xinjiang region which is exporting Caspian oil to China. PetroChina’s ChinaOil is the exclusive buyer of the crude oil on the Chinese side. The pipeline is a joint venture of CNPC and Kaztransoil of Kazkhstan. Some 85,000 bbl/d of Kazakh crude oil flowed through the pipeline during 2007. China’s CNPC is also involved in other major energy projects with Kazkhstan. They all traverse China’s Xinjiang region.

In 2007 CNPC signed an agreement to invest more than $2 billion to construct a natural gas pipeline from Turkmenistan through Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan to China. That pipeline would start at Gedaim on the border of Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan and extend 1,100 miles through Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan to Khorgos in China’s Xinjiang region. Turkmenistan and China have signed a 30-year supply agreement for the gas that would fill the pipeline. CNPC has set up two entities to oversee the Turkmen upstream project and the development of a second pipeline that will cross China from the Xinjiang region to southeast China at a cost of some $7 billion.

As well, Russia and China are discussing major natural gas pipelines from eastern Siberia through Xinjiang into China. Eastern Siberia contains around 135 Trillion cubic feet of proven plus probable natural gas reserves. The Kovykta natural gas field could give China with natural gas in the next decade via a proposed pipeline.

During the current global economic crisis, Kazakhstan received a major credit from China of $10 billion, half of which is for oil and gas sector. The oil pipeline Atasu-Alashankou and the gas pipeline China-Central Asia, are an instrument of strategic ‘linkage’ of central Asian countries to the economy China. That Eurasian cohesion from Russia to China across Central Asian countries is the geopolitical cohesion Washington most fears. While they would never say so, growing instability in Xinjiang would be an ideal way for Washington to weaken that growing cohesion of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization nations.

William Engdahl is the author of Full Spectrum Dominance: Totalitarian Democracy in the New World Order.

BEIJING – THREE Uighur men tried to incite other Muslims to launch a ‘jihad’ and attacked a mosque security guard before police shot and killed two of them, state media reported on Tuesday.

The incident began when around 150 Muslims were praying in a mosque in Urumqi, the capital of the northwest Xinjiang region on Monday, Xinhua news agency said, citing an unnamed imam who was giving a service at the time.

One man stood up and tried to take over the prayers but was stopped, the imam told Xinhua. A few minutes later the man reportedly stood up holding a green banner and started calling for a ‘jihad’.

The imam then ended the prayers, adding: ‘We will definitely not follow you. Get out!”, according to Xinhua.

As the man was being ordered from the mosque, two other men took out three 50 centimetre long knives from a bag, Xinhua said.

Security guards then tried to stop the men. One of the guards, aged in his 40s who did not want to give his name, said the group chased him out of the mosque wielding the knives where they met patrolling police, Xinhua said.

Police fired warnings shots to try to stop the men before shooting at the three, killing two and injuring one.

A government statement released on Monday soon after the attack said: ‘Police shot and killed two suspected lawbreakers and injured one suspected lawbreaker using legal means.’ The statement said the three Uighurs were trying to attack another person from the Uighur minority group.

The government’s statement and the Xinhua report conflicted with accounts by two Uighurs who said they witnessed the incident from 50 metres away and that three Uighur men had been trying to attack security forces. ‘They hacked at the soldiers with big knives and then they were shot,’ said one of the witnesses, who said the incident took place across the street from a mosque.

The incident showed the city remained volatile despite a huge security clampdown following unrest on July 5 which left more than 180 people dead, in the worst ethnic violence to hit the country in decades. Thousands of Han Chinese retaliated in the following days, arming themselves with makeshift weapons. Despite a hefty security presence, authorities have since struggled to keep a lid on sporadic violence. — AFP

The letter was written to Mr. Ruan Yunfei 冉云飞, a well-known Chinese writer and blogger, by someone from a very small minority group in Xinjiang after the Urumqi Incident. It provides a unique perspective into the ethnic relations in the region. It is unique because the author is neither Han nor Uighur and the voice from smaller minority groups in Xinjiang is seldom heard. The author expresses her views with extraordinary candidacy and courage.

I thank Mr. Ran for helping me contact the author. I am very grateful to the author who gave me permission to translate the letter and publish it on the Fool’s Mountain. She also worked with me patiently in the past few days to clarify many points in the letter. Our communication is reflected in the translation and the notes at the end of the letter.

The author wants the readers to know that the information she provided in her letter about the policies and conditions of ethnic minority eduction reflects her experience in a particular university and at a particular time (early 2000) in Xinjiang. The author does not claim to know situations in every universities in Xinjiang or in the whole country. Readers should be careful when making generalizations. She also said there might be some changes in the policies and conditions of ethnic minority eduction in recent years that she is not aware of.

“This maybe the world’s tiniest memorial hall. Not quite 5 meter by 5 meter, it’s intent is not to mark an important historical event, or eulogize a famous person, only to remember an ordinary life.”Continue reading »

Amid all the debates regarding how and to what extend Uighurs benefited or suffered from preferential policies or discriminations in Xinjiang, there is much confusion in one particular subject. Namely, are Uighurs subject to the (in)famous population control regulation (AKA family planning)? And if so, what kind of restrictions do they face? This post tries to answer these questions with some concrete details.

I would like to bring readers’ attention to this article in the WSJ. As I do not personally live in China, I do not wish to comment at length on the issue though I personally feel the natural regionalism is countered by an equally strong cultural ethos of staying united, especially after so many attempts to divide up the country.

Michael is one of those few figures whose influence knew no boundaries – neither political, religious, national, ethnic, gender …. Not just the “king of pop”, Michael was also the king of charity. The world has mourned his passing. Continue reading »